Mining at Wellhaugh / Wellheugh Amble
 

Looking at some detailed 1753 notes on borings for coal relating to Hauxley Colliery and came across this relating to Wellhaugh point. Looks like there was mining at Wellhaugh, which ties in nicely with my long held suspicion that there is a shaft exposed next to the quarry there. Will add a photo when I get one.

"and for that other coal I mean the coal that was formerly set on at the Well Hugh Rock and has its course thro’ the lower part of Mr Taylors Liberty next the link, this coal is likewise but a low coal, at most but 2 feet three inches and has but a short course from the Well hugh Rock thro’ Mr Taylors liberty into Mr Widdringtons ground where this coal is cut off –
Besides this Coal has a very hard stone to sink thro’ and very much water, which will be chargeable at seventy or eighty yards …..to the deep of all the old waste that is as full of water as it can hold."

In this same document there are several references to "Capey Pool Bridge" or similar

this must be in the Amble / Moor House / Hauxley area

any ideas anyone?? :confused:

Two shafts at Wellhaugh, about 7 metres apart:

these should predate 1750s

1st has been sunk along a small slip giving it a flat section -
easier to win but with some increased risk.

http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/imag...afts_amble.jpg


http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/imag...fts_amble2.jpg

Reading an old geology book (1936) which has some interesting references to seams of coal at Amble:

Amble.—The exposures in the cliffs and on the foreshore for about a mile south of Warkworth Harbour provide the only good sections we have of beds low down in the Coal Measures. Several fossil-bands occur and a few coals, but the exact relationship of these seams to the coals south of the Hauxley Fault is very uncertain. Most of the sequence would appear to lie below the Bottom Coal of Broomhill.

.....The general dip is to the S.E., at angles varying from 3° to 8°. A coal, said to have been found many years ago in sewer cutting at the harbour, was reported to be 12 in. thick. It has been taken arbitrarily as the base of the Middle Coal Group. An 18-in. coal a short distance above is said to have been proved at the Gas Works, and again at the top of an old quarry 150 yards to the south. Nothing can now be seen of these coals or their associated strata. Not far above, however, the rock-section begins on the coast at the south pier beacon. Here are the Pan Rocks, yellowish, bedded sandstones forming a broad outcrop on the foreshore. At least 30 feet thick, they were once extensively quarried for water-filters, being coarse, gritty and pebbly, at least in the lower beds. Towards the top they are flaggy and highly false-bedded, and are covered by 12 to 15 feet of greenish shales.' These have small clay-ironstone concretions towards the base, and…..

[snip]
………fault of unknown throw, which can be traced seawards as far as low-water mark. Beyond this a sandstone was once quarried near Link House, and supplied much of the stone for building at Amble. It rests on a coal 2 ft. 3 in. thick (at one time wrought on the foreshore), and the lower parts are highly carbonaceous. Mr. Eckford states that in a small collection at Amble school are Gyracanthus spines, said to have been got near the base of a conglomeratic sandstone, where he himself found a fish-tooth and fragments of spines. The Link House sandstone forms the cliff for some distance southwards, and there are extensive outcrops on the foreshore; the upper beds, which lie in a series of folds, are false-bedded and lenticular, with several bands of shale. At the south end of the exposures a broad domed outcrop of sandstone covers a coal, locally 2 ft. 5 in. thick. This seam would certainly appear to lie under the higher beds of the Link House sandstone; it may even be the seam known at the north end of the cliff at the….

famous sandstone for water filters from the old quarry?

The book above is crown copyright -thus expired - so could be published on the site in its entirety. Is a local memoir for Rothbury Amble and Ashington.

I doubt the Amble School still has its fish fossils!

That last coal seam mentioned was being worked again by some enterprising individuals just a year or two ago.

The other coal, 2'3", mentioned under the Wellhaugh sandstone is the obvious target of those pits pictured.

Another interesting snippet:

'Where last exposed in the cliffs the Link House sandstone starts to rise southwards. During the miners' strike of 1926 the underlying coal was worked extensively, not only on the foreshore under the covering dome of sandstone, but also under the sand-hills; it was reached here through many small shafts sunk from the beach above high-water mark, and the seam, gently undulating, was worked for more than 30 yards under the dunes. The coal was of a hard, black, canneloid nature with conchoidal fracture, and contained some fish-remains.'

There's a collapsed pit AKA "a dayfall" on the foreshore just south of Signal Cottage.

I'll take a picture next time I'm there.

I wonder what quarry that is ?

My nephew has pointed me in the direction of a wonderful postcard for sale on the internet. It is a photograph by Burrows of Amble showing a group of miners (including one down a hole) and onlookers digging for coal by rocky outcrops. Coquet Island is in the background. I guess its Wellhaugh Point or the Rocky Shore, as we called it. The website claims it is dated 1915.
Fortunately I found another site which sold the same card back in 2011 and this also displays the reverse, which was sent by Tom C to Mrs Grisdale of South Shields on 12 March 1910:
"...We are still in the midst of the strike here. This completes the tenth week of the stoppage. This card will give you some idea of how the men are getting their coals at present. You can just see the island in the background."

They must have been using explosives on the beach in 1910; the National Archives holds this document:

http://discovery.nationalarchives.go...s?uri=C6395921

This is the area I believe in blue, lots of rectangular pits, merging into an extensive broken mass. The yellow line is the axis of an anticline fold as mentioned in the geology memoir above. The whole mined area is another anticline but a bit more subtle to detect.

There's a line of more circular looking pits along the western edge of that blue square - the could be the shafts mentioned in the geology memoir which have workings under the dunes. It would suggest about 10 metres of erosion in about 80 odd years.

http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/imag...h_miners_2.jpg

[ © 2012 Google Infoterra Ltd and Bluesky ]



Does anyone know what the concrete platform was? (ringed in red above) I thought it must be the isolation hospital (see this map) but it can't be as it's in the wrong position. :confused:






.

Just out of interest, while searching the National Archives catalogue I came across this reference

Elizabeth I - George IV
Exchequer: Pipe Office: Particulars, Warrants and Transcripts for Crown Leases

Bee, Edward: Lands and tenements in Bywell, Bromley, Mickley, Shotley, Newbiggin, Slaley, Ridinge, and Le Ley; the site of the manor of Amble, a salt-pit in Amble, a coalmine in Amble and Anyley and a tenement in Le Castlegarth in Newcastle.

1618 wow - Is that our earliest reference to mining in Amble? (and perhaps Anyley is Hauxley too?)


The challenge now is to get back to 15xx something! then next stop Anglo-Saxon coal mining in Amble! :D

I'm sure the Venerable Bede must have mentioned something about it, in between rabbiting on about those pesky Vikings :)

Afraid the County History refers to letters patent dated 1590 for coal mining at Amble and Hauxley.

Nice. Coquet island also has an accessible seam I believe which might have a paper record by Bede and his chums? you never know.

Here's the historic 'miners' strike' beach activity playing out again during the 1984 strike [image courtesy Alan J.]:

100 Years of erosion.
There's quite a range of erosion rates predicted for Amble Hauxley and Druridge bay. How accurate they will be only time will tell. I stuck these two images together - after standing in the approx same spot as the original photographer. It looks a different angle but that's an illusion caused by a first floor being added to most of the salt pans buildings and a waste tip has created an artificial hill in the mid-ground.
Anyway, you can see erosion has occurred to the sandstone and shale banks at the high water mark near the salt pans. Several metres I would say. This is potentially interesting for estimating a minimum age for any mine shafts/ bell pits that now appear below the high water mark.


http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/images/erosion2.jpg

What a fascinating comparison, Coquet. Do we know anything about the waste tip?

It might have been thought that the piece below the Salt Pans might have been a bit protected from heavy seas, but obviously not.

Looks like they had just started up tipping here which I guessing is about 1910. Wellhaugh quarry is also totally in-filled with Edwardian rubbish - vast amounts of it, as it (the quarry) extended right back to the road - now that would be an interesting photo - the empty quarry before it was landfilled. I noticed the other day that the quarry road is still visible cutting across the links from near 'Manders' - it must have swung around near the high water mark and into the quarry floor.